Articles: Control

states. What changed after 1648, and more decisively in the nineteenth century, was not the practice of private force. It was the normative claim that the state should hold a monopoly on it — a claim never fully realized, but one that became the organizing fiction of the international system. Continue reading →

“My grandmother was born in 1998,” Ilse said. “She lived to see the transition. She told me that in her youth, the idea of a private soldier was still slightly scandalous. Mercenaries belonged to failed states and colonial wars. They were ‘dogs of war,’ and the phrase was an insult. By the time she died in 2081, the scandal had inverted. It was the state soldier who seemed anachronistic. Quaint. Inefficient. Why pay for a standing army when the Consortium, or Apex Global, or the Praetorian Cooperative could provide better rates, no pension obligations, and no flag-draped coffins? She said the last time she saw a uniformed national soldier was 2069, at a heritage parade. He looked like a reenactor.” Continue reading →